Cheese & Whine: July 21

CHEESE & WHINE: Jays Spoil Sweep

RAYS: 4
Jays: 9


CHEESE:

• Evan Longoria, with the Rays trailing 3-2 in the third, hit a solo homerun (his 18th) to tie the game.
• Carlos Pena, not to be out-done, followed with a homer of his own. El Gato now has 15 for the season.
• Both Al Reyes and Troy Percival pitched in the game, and at the time of this post neither one is set to go back on the DL- thank heavens for small miracles. Both relievers looked good, pitching a combined 2 2/3 innings and allowing 1 hit and no runs between them.

WHINE:

• Joe Maddon pulled Jackson in the 5th after Edwin had allowed 6 runs off of 8 hits. At that point in the game the score was 6-4 and the Rays had a decent chance at getting back into it. Anyone who has watched Jackson pitch over the last season and a half knows that he gets stronger at around 80-85 pitches, and usually pitches his best innings later in his starts. So what does ol' Joe do? He pulls Jackson after only 86 pitches, I know he had just allowed a 3-run homer and then another hit, and most of the time I'd agree with pulling Jackson before it got out of hand, but here's where the move doesn't make sense: He replaced him with Jason Hammel. Does Maddon really believe that Hammel is a better option than Jackson (who was just entering his prime pitch count area (85-110))? In that situation I'll take Jackson for another inning and two-thirds over Hammel anytime.
• Jason Hammel helped prove my point, pitching for 1 2/3 innings and allowing 2 runs on 2 hits while walking 2.
• Reyes and Percival (although the game was essentially over at that point) should combine for more than 1 K against 10 combined batters.
• In the 4th inning, with Gomes on third, Zobrist hit a sac-fly to dead center. Gomes tagged-up and headed for home and had the throw to home beat by a few steps, but was unable to touch the plate. Although Zaun did an awesome job of blocking the plate, he (Gomes) has to be able to get past the catcher and touch the plate.

CRACKERS:

• Evan Longoria has been involved in every back-to-back homerun scenario for the Rays so far this season (I believe that there have been 3 instances, including one back-to-back-to-back against the Angels)
• Longoria leads all rookies (and the team) with 18 homeruns. He is second only to A-Rod (20) amongst all AL third basemen.